THE LAW, JUSTICE AND OTHER CHALLENGES – MICHAEL KIRBY

The Hon Michael Kirby AC CMG has many awards and honours to his name. His career has spanned well over half a century and his contribution to the promotion of human rights through the law has been outstanding. On Monday 25 May 2026, Michael Kirby addressed The Sydney Institute to discuss the publication of Law Justice and Other Challenges: Selected Speeches and Papers of Michael Kirby (2025), by The Federation Press, Sydney. The work of editor Dr Paul Vout KC, the volume stands as a testimony to a life dealing with the law, justice and many challenges.

THE LAW, JUSTICE AND OTHER CHALLENGES

MICHAEL KIRBY

I thank Gerard Henderson, Anne Henderson and their team of helpers for the ongoing activities of The Sydney Institute. I also thank them for including this launch by me of a new book, edited by Dr Paul Vout KC of the Melbourne Bar, Law Justice and Other Challenges. The book contains 55 chapters. Only the Foreword by the Governor-General of Australia (the Hon, Ms Sam Mostyn AC); the Introduction by the editor (Dr Paul Vout KC), a short Preface by me and last chapter (Ch 55) are specially produced for this book. All the other chapters were drawn from a substantial compilation of my articles, speeches and other papers, published online, including on my website.¹

I am greatly indebted to the Governor-General for her generous Foreword. In 1988, I selected her, as a young graduate in law, as one of my two associates (law clerks). She was chosen to work with me in my chambers in the NSW Court of Appeal in Sydney. By the stage she was appointed, my established practice had become to select one male and one female associate each year. To that time, there had never been a female Judge of Appeal in NSW. So, I did my bit to show, in law, women were the equals of men.

All of the associates chosen, both in the Court of Appeal and, later, in the High Court of Australia, were outstanding young lawyers. They have gone on to creative and highly successful careers in judiciary, politics, academic life, commerce and industry, and other worthwhile vocations. Sam Mostyn and Paul Vout are members of this comparatively small band. My associates worked in extremely busy chambers in courts and in the Australian Law Reform Commission, over the period 1975-2009.

In 1975, I was appointed to the Australian Conciliation and Arbitration Commission as a Deputy President. Soon after, also in 1975, I was appointed the inaugural, full-time Chairman of the Australian Law Reform Commission. As explained in my Preface, I was assisted in these offices by a tiny number of greatly competent secretaries. The longest serving of these was Janet Saleh who died recently. Sarah Conquest still works for and with me. These intrepid assistants, all of them, contributed greatly to the idea, contents, engrossment and presentation of every page in this book. I pay a tribute to them. This work is as much theirs as it is mine.

A heartbreaking choice

The number of papers and speeches of mine, collected on my website exceeds 3000. These are only the speeches and papers that were produced in a formal written state. Many were given extempore and are lost. Collection began in January 1975, immediately after my first appointment. The collection has been maintained consecutively, until today.

Because anyone with access to the internet can secure copy of my papers back to 1975, I regarded the idea of a new book, containing a selection of these speeches, as a painful chore. Would I ever find the time to go through this huge collection, identify only some of the emerging themes; select and propose those most worthy of publication; and then go through the time consuming task of footnoting; annotating; editing; checking; and above all selecting a representative sample that would give a fair insight into the multitude of themes that I had addressed over more than half a century?

There being no way, in a busy life, that I could find the time to select and prepare the contents of such a book, when I was approached by Jason Monaghan of The Federation Press to embark on this book, I had real reservations. I thought it would be heartbreaking for me to discard thousands. Jason Monaghan had been in charge of an earlier publication, Appealing to the Future: Michael Kirby and his Legacy, (eds I. Freckleton and H. Selby, Thomson Reuters). This was launched in 2009 by Sir Anthony Mason, past Chief Justice of Australia.

Legacy required little effort on my part. Its contents were, essentially, chapters written by experts on a multitude of themes that emerged from my writing, mostly in court. For this new book, Jason Monaghan wanted new achievement. This would be a sample of my own writing. It was to be selected by Paul Vout (who had served as my associate in the Court of Appeal, three years after Sam Mostyn). Jason Monaghan was persistent and determined. I had huge respect for Paul Vout. He is a barrister, now practising in Melbourne. He is editor of the Commonwealth Law Reports. He was to have unbridled power in choosing the sample. I could leave the entire publication process to him and Jason Monaghan. This was an arrangement attractive because of its lack of demands upon me.

I pay tribute to the publisher and the editor. I had nothing to do with the selections. However, as I later came to check the text for typographicals and the possible need for clarifying footnotes, I came to appreciate (and admire) their choices. Above all, I regard the collection as appropriate. It is chronological. Although it derived from papers produced at different times over encountered 50 years, the chapters have been placed in what is essentially, chronological order. Its chapters trace my life from a representative sample of my own writing. It was a pleasant surprise to me, even unexpected, to discover how logical and interesting was the journey traced by the chapters chosen and selected by the publisher and editor. The chief tribute for this book therefore belongs to them. It would have broken my heart to exclude any of the over 3000 contributions online. In the result, however, it was virtually painless to read the book, cover to cover, and to be reminded of events, people, issues and themes that I had encountered over 50 years. Not many people have that privilege. To discover that it was also a pleasure was completely unexpected.

I thank Paul Vout, Jason Monaghan and the team at The Federation Press for producing this book in an attractive imperial purple cover. Tables, footnotes and the index are impeccable. Though I searched, I did not find a single typographical or infelicity. Astonishing.

Early years

The early chapters (1-16) outline features relevant to my earliest years. I grew up in a happy family in the suburb of Concord, an inner-western suburb of Sydney. They tell of my early discovery of my sexuality. The wonderful educational experiences with outstanding teachers in the public education system. My intensive engagement with student politics at university. And my earliest memories as a legal practitioner and law reformer, outlining my very busy years as I entered my professional life.

There follows an important part of the book that deals with my experience as a judge. It includes Welcome and Farewell speeches for my arrivals and farewells, in successive courts, including the NSW Court of Appeal and the High Court of Australia. It describes particularly my thirteen years in the High Court: the continuity and changes that I witnessed. It seeks to explain the judicial tradition of dissent, when a participating judge disagrees seriously with the reasoning or final orders of colleagues. It illustrates the task of judging, with a reference to resolution of actual quandaries faced, not only in the courts of Australia but also in the hearings a Commission of Inquiry of the United Nations on Human Rights in North Korea. An important chapter describes the controversies surrounding the reluctance of Australian judges to invoke international human rights law (including in constitutional issues) in Australia. May it be done? When may it be helpful?

Human rights, international work and biographies

From these professional papers, the book goes on to a section dealing with human rights issues with which I became engaged over the years. Law and Australia’s First Nations People; the AIDS pandemic; the Human Genome Project; the Dreyfus case; homophobia and transgender rights; capital punishment; and miscarriages of justice.

The closing substantive chapters of the book address international tasks in which I became involved. Meeting Nelson Mandella and describing the escape of South Africa from apartheid; seeking to help Cambodia in the aftermath of the oppression of the Khmer Rouge; seeking to revitalise the Commonwealth of Nations; engagement with human rights violations in North Korea; and with the liberating aspects of the right of self-determination of peoples, promised in the UN Charter.

The final chapters of the book record selected biographical notes on people important in my own journey: A chapter on H.V. Evatt, who helped save Australia from the deprival of Communists from their ordinary human rights; the controversial career of Lionel Murphy, creative in Parliament and in the High Court; and my own love-hate relationship with the brilliant lawyer and judge, Roddy Meagher. These were a sample of relationships from behind the purple curtain.

The last chapter returns to a theme mentioned in the first. This was my now nearly 60-year relationship with my partner, now spouse, Johan van Vloten. His existence was earlier supressed, because of the state of criminal law and the restrictions of my early life. Irrational, sometimes religious, animosity was turned upon gays and other sexual minorities. The unthreatening nature of the loving relationship between Johan and me accompanied and sustained me every day since we met in 1969. In this book it is laid out for all to see. Fortunately, including as a result of the enactment of marriage equality, things have improved in Australia over our lifetimes. However, recent backward steps in several otherwise friendly nations, show that this battle has not yet been finally won.

Years ago, I served as third Chancellor of Macquarie University, in Sydney. It was a great experience in a vibrant institution that became the third university established in Sydney. However, during those years, my partner Johan was hidden, in deference to the then demands of prejudice in society. Two years ago, Macquarie University named its new law building for the Macquarie Law School after me. Naming a university building after a past Chancellor is not unusual in Australia. However, what followed was certainly unusual. When the new Law School building was opened, Johan accompanied me to the opening ceremony, performed by Mr Martin Parkinson AC (Chancellor) and S. Bruce Dowton MD (Vice-Chancellor). My speech was unremarkable and is not recorded in this book. However, something happened after the naming decision was made. The main lecture hall in the building was named by the Council of the University the “Johan van Vloten Theatre”. This was a sign that, in Australia, things could change in the values and attitudes of decent people. They could change for the better.

Johan was invited to make a speech on that occasion. It is included at the very close of this book. In his first public speech, he tells of how he never dreamed, when he arrived in Australia from the Netherlands as a migrant in 1963, that such an event could happen. “Dreams come true,” he said. He acknowledged that he had “none of the usual qualifications”. However, this made him virtually “everyone”. And the law was “for everyone”. Essential to a just society and a safe world. Vital to minorities of all kinds. “Dreams come true,” Johan declared. I hope that this is the message of this book that readers will take away with them from reading its pages. In a country like Australia, Dreams come true. Human dignity can be upheld for all.

…

Copies of Michael Kirby, Law Justice and Other Challenges: Selected Speeches and Papers of Michael Kirby (2025), The Federation Press, Sydney.

Can be ordered online:
info@federationpress.com.au
The current RRP is (full standard price) $180
(student and lecturer discount) $130 (post included)

¹ www.michaelkirby.com.au